


A Safe House

by whatmyladydisdain



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Threats of Rape/Non-Con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-02 20:39:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10226873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatmyladydisdain/pseuds/whatmyladydisdain
Summary: ***On hiatus until 5 June.***“Percy?” she muttered blearily in her soft Irish lilt as she shifted and her eyes opened.Unease blossomed.  Something was off, she could always tell. But this was different to nights he came home from a case that had gone badly or from drowning in tedious office politics all day. She could not put her finger on what it was, but a tiny frown sprang to her face all the same. Maybe she was just not properly awake yet, but she could not shake the unease.***Someone notices that Percival Graves was replaced after all and an old schoolmate is about to make things infinitely more complicated.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first posted work ever. Constructive criticism welcome. Basing this fic on the theory that Grindelwald only actually replaced Percival Graves for the two days of the movie, given that the screenplay says his battle in Europe happened the night before Newt's ship docked. Not beta'd, happy to fix any mistakes pointed out.

A figure stood in the doorway of Persephone Graves’ bedroom, watching her sleeping form on the bed. Her dark hair fell wildly over the pillow, like black smoke twisting into the barest semblance of a halo.

“Percy?” she muttered blearily in a soft Irish lilt as she shifted and her eyes opened.

She lifted a hand to rub at her eyes. The bright light from the passage behind cast him into sharp silhouette, but she knew that outline, the slicked back hair and the way his coat draped over one arm. His head turned minutely, throwing brief light on familiar features.

“Yes, it’s me, love,” he whispered as he stepped into the room, carelessly tossing his coat on the chair at her dressing table and loosening his collar, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Unease blossomed. Something was off, she could always tell. But this was different to nights he came home from a case that had gone badly or from drowning in tedious office politics all day. She could not put her finger on what it was, but a tiny frown sprang to her face all the same. Maybe she was just not properly awake yet, but she could not shake the unease.

He waved a hand and the passage light flicked off, leaving only a few slivers of moonlight dotting the bedroom floor to ease the darkness. Persephone’s eyes adjusted quickly and she watched him undo the rest of his shirt buttons. His clothes were unceremoniously discarded into a pile on the floor by his side of the bed and he flopped onto the bed in his underwear and vest and rolled over to face her. He looked quietly at her for a few seconds, as if he were drinking in as much of her face as he could see in the almost dark. Then he pulled her closer.

“Is something wrong, my love?” He murmured against the exposed skin of her shoulder.

“No, I’m just glad you’re home, Percy. You were gone longer than usual,” she sighed into his hair. Yes, something was most definitely wrong. He had not done a thing out of the ordinary, but this did not feel like her Percival. And he was yet to say the word, the name, that would set her heart at ease.

“I missed you too, Percy,” he smiled lovingly at her and pulled her hand to his mouth to brush a kiss over the knuckles.

She tensed for just a moment, her fears confirmed, and his smile changed, suddenly sharper, crueller. Before she could say another word, he had rolled them so that he was straddling her while his left hand gripped around her throat and his right pinned her wrist to the bed above her head.

“Well, it was worth a shot,” he said in a calm tone and dropping the act entirely, “What gave me away, Mrs Graves?”

She squirmed and struggled, panic building quickly as she struck at his face with her free hand, but he did not budge an inch. He smirked down at her, appearing almost bored when she changed tactics and attempted to buck him off.

“He’s my husband,” she growled, “I’m not a fool.”

She would be damned if she was going to explain herself to him.

“Stubborn, are we?” grinned the man who looked like Percival Graves but was not, sounding amused at the defiance. “You’ll find out soon enough that stubbornness won’t be enough to help you, it wasn’t for him.”

“Where is Percival? Where is my husband?” she choked out.

The imposter did not answer, but dragged his gaze over her rather revealing satin nightdress with a look that morphed into something frightening. Her blood ran cold.

“You know,” he said slowly, “you really aren’t my usual type, but you are _a lot_ younger than I expected. What are you, mid-twenties? It’s going to destroy poor Percival to hear all about my first night home alone with his little trophy wife, wearing his face.”

He leaned forward, pressing his face to hers and forcing her into a bruising kiss that was a show of dominance rather than an act of desire. Her free hand tried to push him off, but the fingers around her airway squeezed. The man wearing Percival Graves’ face laughed cruelly against her mouth and licked a long stripe from her jaw over her cheek to her hairline, laughing all the harder as she flinched away in disgust. Her struggles were becoming weaker, his strangling grip beginning to take its toll.

The unease and panic solidified into a cold fear that dropped to the pit of her stomach and she could feel her pulse hammer against the fingers squeezing her throat. Whoever this man was, he had Percival and now he had her. She knew what would happen next (he had all but said it), but she was no match for him physically and if he had defeated Percival, she would be no match in a duel. Surprise was all she had to work with and she did not have long before she passed out entirely.

Persephone remembered her wand lying mere inches away on her bedside table, hidden from her assailant’s view, and a desperate idea popped into her head. Percival had been helping her improve her wandless magic and, focussing all the magic she could muster into one twist of her unrestrained right hand, she managed to make the little chair at the dresser hurtle across the room, knocking the man off her with enough force to throw him off the far side of the bed and tangle him slightly in his discarded coat. Free for only a second, she leapt up, grabbed her wand and spun on her heel. She vanished from the room with a loud crack.

 

She stumbled in the dark alleyway she had Apparated to, not entirely sure where she had landed as her driving thought had simply been to get _away_. She peered out at a small, mercifully deserted street not far from her home. She gave herself a cursory glance, making sure she had not Splinched in her hasty escape. And then the December cold began to set in. She was standing in the mouth of an alley, long past midnight, in nothing but a blue satin nightdress that barely reached her mid thigh. Goosebumps erupted all over her exposed skin and she shivered uncontrollably. She had nothing to her name but the wand clutched in her left hand and nobody to turn to.

Oh Merlin, where was Percival and how badly had he been hurt? How was she ever going to find him? Was it already too late?

Between the cold that kept her shuddering and the dread that tainted even her strongest happy memory (her wedding day), it took six attempts to successfully conjure her Patronus. At last the large, silvery hound, halfway between Great Dane and wolf, erupted from the tip of her wand and cocked its head at her.

“Find him,” she rasped at it, her throat still raw from the stranglehold, “find Percival Graves and do not be seen.”

The Patronus bounded off into the street, fading into a shimmery mirage before disappearing from sight altogether.

She had to leave now. She was still too close to the house, they would probably be able to sense or trace her magic. She glanced around quickly and Disapparated a second time.


End file.
